


In Thy Faint Slumbers

by Muccamukk



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26808361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: David was sure the dreams happened more often than Joe let on.
Relationships: Joseph Liebgott/David Kenyon Webster
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50
Collections: Band of Boyfriends Kisstober Challenge 2020





	In Thy Faint Slumbers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for BoB Kisstober challenge. Day 4: Tear kisses.
> 
> Title from Henry IV, Part I, by William Shakespeare, which is also referenced in the story.
> 
> Thank you to we’re-supposed-to-be-surrounded for looking this over for me. You're a peach ♥

David had left the war behind him long enough ago that their memory had dimmed to shadows in the corners of his mind. Joe, though, David was sure the dreams happened more often than Joe let on.

There'd be mornings when Joe hauled himself out of bed and sat with his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee and a distant look in his eyes, not hearing a word David said. Of course, Joe always said he never heard a word David said, but it was clear when he was trying to get a rise, and when he'd had a night plagued by murmured tales of iron wars. Not that misquoting the Bard at Joe ever got David anywhere, not even when he was in the mood for it. So on the strained, quiet mornings, David gave Joe his space and wished he knew what to say to make it better.

Other nights, he'd wake to Joe getting up, abandoning their bed and closing the front door with more force than even the sticky latch needed. To go where, he never said. Every time, David would lie awake thinking of those years after the war, when Joe had vanished into the grime and back roads of the other America, the one that didn't want to be known. He could do that again: take in his cab and drive out of state, ditch the cab, vanish. He could do it any time. David told himself that he wasn't trying to excel in the field of investigative journalism just so that that stunt wouldn't work on him a second time.

This was one of the nights when David woke before Joe did, alerted not by thrashing or screams—Joe never had those kinds of night terrors—but by the unnatural stillness in bed beside him. Joe usually sprawled all over the place, taking up two thirds of the bed, never bothered if that meant sleeping on top of David, but on these nights he pulled away and stilled himself. How he could close down like that while sleeping David never knew. He never knew how to respond when it happened, either: if he touched Joe, it would send him out of bed and into one of those awful sulks, but not reaching out felt just as intolerable.

The city lights of San Francisco cut through the curtains, casting enough illumination on the bed to show Joe's hunched shoulders, the tense line of his naked back through the thin sheet that was all he'd allow himself to sleep under—"Hey, if I'm cold, that's what you're here for," he'd say when David wanted a duvet. The muscles of his arms twitched, and he kicked slightly, like a dog dreaming of the hunt.

David lay perfectly still, holding his own breath to listen to Joe's. He never made a whimper, but his back jerked as he panted.

Then, like God had flipped a switch, Joe took a sharp breath and went still, awake.

Keeping to his side of the bed, David waited for Joe to get up and either vanish into the night, or go down to the kitchen and start the coffee four hours too early.

Instead, Joe's shoulders started to shake again, this time not with laboured gasps but with tiny hitching sobs.

David couldn't stand it. Joe could throw him out of their own bed if he liked, but he wasn't going to just _lie there_ and watch Joe hurting.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, knowing an endearment was the wrong choice even as he said it, flinching as Joe flinched at the word.

"Fuck. Web. Leave me alone," Joe snarled, but it came out as, "Leemilone," and was followed up with a prolonged snuffle.

"I'm not going to do that, Joe." David reached out across the world of empty bed between them and put his hand on Joe's shoulder.

Joe jolted like David had touched him with a stripped wire, then rounded on David in a fury. Before David entirely knew what was happening, Joe had pushed him flat on his back and was straddling him, David's shoulders pinned to the bed. "I said," he started, voice low and fierce, but part way way through, he crumpled, staring wide eyed at David's underneath him. The thin street light caught the tears on his cheeks, making them shine like polished silver.

David held himself as still as he could, even though his heart felt as though it were going to pound out of his chest, and waited to see what Joe would do. When he didn't say anything else, David wet his lips and tried to think of something to say that wouldn't make things worse. "You said to leave you," David told him, "but you know I'll never do that. Don't you?"

"Fuck!" Joe could mean a hundred things with that word, anything from praise to punctuation. Over the years, David had thought he'd gotten to know the nuances of Joe's profanity pretty well, but he couldn't place this one. "Fuck," Joe said again, most softly, the hitch back in his voice. He dropped to his elbows, crushing the breath out of David's lungs, and started to kiss him.

Or, not to kiss him, to devour him. Joe was all teeth and tongue and harsh breaths through his congested nose. David could taste the salt of Joe's tears, feel the way Joe's heart beat as fast as his own, not even a t-shirt to separate their skin. David lifted his hands to run his fingers through Joe's silky hair, stroking it over and over, then running his nails down the bumps of Joe's spine. Neither of them was aroused, but David wriggled until he could spread his legs to either side of Joe's, taking Joe's body into the space between them.

Joe broke the kiss and pulled away. "Fuck," he said a third time, and now David knew exactly what he meant. "Goddammit, Web, don't you ever even think about leaving me."

The intensity of the demand almost stopped David's heart, and he knew he took too long to answer, but finally he came up with a half smile and, "Of course not. Like you'd last five minutes without me."

Instead of whipping back with some comment about Web not knowing how to tie his shoes by himself, Joe rolled off David and grabbed his shoulder to pulling him onto his side so that they faced each other. David still had one hand enmeshed in Joe's hair and stroked it slowly. Joe's fingers dug into his arm.

"You can't fucking leave me," Joe hissed, and kissed David again to seal it.

David moaned into the kiss and held Joe's body against his, chest to chest, legs tangled up in each other. He was thinking that he hadn't ever been the one he'd been worried about leaving, but he supposed that he didn't have to worry about Joe now, either.


End file.
